


burn your rage

by theonlytwin



Series: into the storm, crash of the lightning bolt [1]
Category: Pancrase, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: M/M, Post-Match, forgive me liger for i have sinned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 10:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18589492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theonlytwin/pseuds/theonlytwin
Summary: Suzuki is waiting when he gets out of the shower, sitting on the bench by Liger’s gear. Suzuki is still in trunks, legs spread, looking lazy. As Keiichi watches, Suzuki smiles, puts a hand on the mask, crumpling the fabric.“I have more of those,” he says.(post April 24th tag match, but also before that)





	1. Chapter 1

Suzuki is waiting when he gets out of the shower, sitting on the bench by Liger’s gear. Suzuki is still in trunks, legs spread, looking lazy. As Keiichi watches, Suzuki smiles, puts a hand on the mask, crumpling the fabric.

“I have more of those,” he says, crosses the change room to stand next to him, because that’s where his clothes are. 

Suzuki looks up at him from under his eyebrows, still smiling.

“Are you trying to intimidate me?” He pulls clean socks and underwear out of his bag. “I’m no young lion.”

“I know how old you are, Liger-san. You’re so old you’re retiring.” He tilts his head back against the wall, rolls his eyes. 

Keiichi huffs. “Something you need?”

Suzuki picks up the mask, folds his fingers around one of the horns. “You want to do it in the ring?

“That’s what I said. That’s how it should be done. We do it in the ring.”

“Is that all?” Suzuki bares his teeth, widens his eyes, a crazy smile. It’s not an attractive look - no one’s attractive when they’re angry, Keiichi’s found - but it is compelling. Suzuki is, always has been, compelling. He demands you pay attention to him, simply by how he looks. He has a fascinating face.

Also fascinating are his hands, tight and twisting. Keiichi’s still only wearing a towel, and he’s used to being mostly naked in front of other men, but watching Suzuki’s hands twist makes something in his stomach twist and he feels, suddenly, exposed.

“That’s where we fight. For the fans.”

“Oh, oh. For the fans.” He drops the mask, the smile, as though disgusted, stands up. He leans close, his body hot, smelling of exertion and tape. “It’s not the fans I’m asking, dumbass.”

He doesn’t step back. With Suzuki you can’t ever step back. He meets his eye, suppresses a shiver.

“Where else?”

Suzuki tilts his head to the side, no closer or further away. Keiichi doesn’t blink.

“My place. If you’re up to it.” One hand slithers across Keiichi’s bare belly, and Suzuki clamps his fingers around Keiichi’s wrist, where he’s holding the towel. He could pull away but there’s a decent chance the towel will go too. “Old man.”

His hand is burning against Keiichi’s skin. “I’m not that old. You just think I am because I was so successful when you were just starting.”

Suzuki grins again, slow and insane. 

“I’ve got your number,” he says, and lets go, steps backwards. “I’ll text you my address.”

Keiichi keeps his gaze until he leaves.

As he dresses, his hands are shaking. Where Suzuki had touched him feels like a brand, like if he looks closely it will glow white hot. Like he’s been struck by lightning.

***

Thirty years ago, Suzuki had been handsome. He had been polite, considered, efficient: marked as the next big star. 

Keiichi had felt worldly, travelled, mature - at all of twenty four - and thought he could teach the young boys a few things.

Suzuki looked like a demon when he wrestled. 

He wasn’t a perfect wrestler - his striking was powerful, but sloppy, he seemed scared of anything above the second rope - but he was fascinating to watch. Highly compelling. Keiichi found himself excited to see what he’d become - Suzuki-kun could be the ace.

“Hey,” Keiichi said, one warm Tuesday afternoon. “Show me some of your holds.”

And Suzuki Minoru, maybe nineteen and shockingly pretty, smiled easily, nodded. 

So they had grappled, rolling around and around the mat, locking and stretching each other’s limbs, gathering heat and sweat between them as the sun sank beyond the windows. 

He tapped, Suzuki tapped, and they kept going. People stopped to watch, to comment, and drift away, but they kept at it. Eventually, when the dojo was empty and it was dark out, Keiichi had sat up and asked if Suzuki wanted to go get a beer. 

“Alright,” Suzuki had said, a sly look in his eye that Keiichi didn’t really think about, at the time.

They had kept up casual conversation in the change room. Keiichi didn’t notice anything odd, stripping down, turning on the taps, unselfconscious, until Suzuki, with his sweet face, barged him into the corner of the shower, boxing him in.

“Oi,” Keiichi said, more shocked than actually annoyed, and couldn’t finish his sentence because Suzuki kissed him. 

Kiss may not have been the word - it wasn’t like any kiss Keiichi had ever had, with girls at school, at the end of dates, dainty and private. it was like what he did in the ring - it was mobile, vicious, made Keiichi’s blood pump fast. Suzuki raked his teeth over Keiichi’s lip, pressed him back into the tiles. 

Keiichi’s hand was on Suzuki’s chest, he could have pushed him away - instead he pushed his tongue back against Suzuki’s, bought his other hand up to clench at his hip.

Keiichi had no words for Suzuki reaching between them, taking hold of his cock. His shoulder was pinned, almost painfully, to the wet, cold wall, and his cock was filling in Suzuki’s impossibly hot hand.

Suzuki laughed, a strange little laugh that made Keiichi certain this was some kind of prank, that everything was about to go wrong - but then he sank to his knees, and if this was a prank, it had no obvious punchline.

He slammed his head against the tiles, said something incoherent, tried to pull out of Suzuki’s mouth - but the bastard was hard to escape. His hands had Keiichi’s hips, his beautiful face apparently at peace, sucking on his cock, eyelids fluttering. 

Keiichi had never done anything but touch himself, assumed that the rest would come after marriage to a woman he never spent much time imagining - and here, in this shower, in the dojo, with this boy - he came, and Suzuki drew back, laughed again, drooling white. 

“You’re insane,” Keiichi realised, and dragged Suzuki up, held him very close, because he was uncertain what to do next. Suzuki’s erection was rubbing against his stomach. 

“You don’t have to return it,” Suzuki said, and bit down on Keiichi’s shoulder, sucking there now.

“Wait,” Keiichi said, and turned Suzuki around, pulled him close again, so his front was flush to Suzuki’s back, reached around and took hold of Suzuki’s cock. Suzuki shuddered against him, body arching, like a bridge, and Keiichi pulled him back again, arm banded over his chest, leg folded around one of Suzuki’s, to hold him in place. 

Suzuki groaned, writhed, hips thrusting - when he came, he went still, gasping. They stood, plastered together, surrounded by steam, water, the sound of them catching their breath.

“You still want that beer?” he asked, head tipped back against Keiichi’s.

“Yeah,” Keiichi said, because why wouldn’t he?

Suzuki slipped out of his grasp, stood under the shower water, smiling again. “Good.”

***

He had gone back to his own tiny apartment alone that night, after a few beers with this mad boy.

He pulled himself off, thinking about how to make it happen again. Whether he could. If it was allowed.

Suzuki, when he next saw him, just nodded politely. 

Keiichi circled him, subtly, doing the same exercises, watching him spar, sparring himself, trying not to look at Suzuki more or less than he had the day before.

If Suzuki felt observed, he didn’t show it.

In the evening, Keiichi accidentally invited all the young lions to dinner, because he had meant to invite Suzuki but hadn’t wanted to seem rude. 

At the end of the night, which was fun, and silly, Suzuki heads back towards the dojo with the others - not even a glance back.

Keiichi supposed that maybe it wasn’t allowed to happen. Maybe only once. He tried to put it out of his mind.

*** 

It does keep happening - but only after they’ve fought. 

It takes Keiichi embarrassingly long to figure out this correlation. It happens again in the shower after they’ve sparred - Suzuki holds their cocks together and gets them off at once, leaving a red mark on his neck. They exchange octopus locks in the ring and Suzuki rocks against him in the change room. Keiichi gets folded between Suzuki's legs and later sucks his cock, which is more difficult than Suzuki had made it look.

He pins Suzuki in a match, in their first match, in a kind of rehearsal run, and Suzuki stares up at him with glazed eyes. He looks distressed, and Keiichi offers him a hand up. 

“Want to go get a beer?” Suzuki asks, after being hauled up.

On their way out, Suzuki asks if he has his own place to live.

“I do.”

“Would you show it to me?” Suzuki smiles, slyly. “So I know what to look forward to after the dojo.”

Suzuki shoves him to the floor of his own apartment, so Keiichi trips him, brings him down, and they roll against the wall, legs interlocking. 

Later, Keiichi suggests he go buy some beer.

“I should get back,” Suzuki says, splayed out, sweating, eyes glazed again. He sits up, stares at his own chest. “Can I use your shower?”

“Of course.”

Suzuki climbs to his feet, stretches out his hand. “Will you join me, Yamada-san?”

Keiichi puts his hand in Suzuki’s, lets himself be hauled up. “Of course.”

***

It’s once a month, sometimes twice. He’s not sure if Suzuki does this with everyone he fights. He can’t ask. He doesn’t have the language.

***

Suzuki debuts, officially and it’s as exciting as Keiichi thought it would be. They don’t fight together, but they will. He slaps Suzuki on the back along with everyone else, is rewarded with a little smile. 

***

They keep coming together - consistent but informal, a casual sort of thing that he can't figure out how to explain to anyone. Someone asks if he's been on any dates and he can honestly say no.

***

He goes to Canada and expects nothing to change - which was foolish.

***

While he's away, Suzuki leaves. He leaves the company with an explanation, but not one for Keiichi. 

He doesn’t know why he wants one, but he does.

***

They ask him to become a maskman. 

He’ll look like a demon, and he says yes. 


	2. Chapter 2

Years start passing faster and faster. He loves being Liger. People love Liger. New young lions come and go - none of them like Suzuki, which is probably for the best. 

***

He tracks Suzuki and Pancrase through gossip, glad, faintly, that he was right - that many people find Suzuki compelling to look at. He doesn’t watch any of the matches, but reads about results - he’s doing well, it seems, and Keiichi is happy for him.

When he hears that Suzuki is having a last match, that Suzuki needs an opponent - well.

Well, part of him thinks that Suzuki isn’t even going to remember him. Maybe Suzuki had sex with half the company. Maybe he doesn’t know who’s under the Liger mask. Maybe he won’t want to fight a masked wrestler.

Suzuki says yes, and the date is set.

***

No one says anything about their shared history. Jushin Liger has never met Suzuki Minoru, and they shake hands at the weigh in just like any respectful fighters. 

(Keiichi had watched some tapes of Suzuki in preparation - tapes he hadn’t sought out, that Tenzan had presented to him with a flourish. Watching the tapes, he recognises that he will not win this match - Suzuki, older, scarred, shaved to his scalp, is still mad, maybe madder than he had been as a young man. More viscous, outside the rules of wrestling and fucking.)

They have separate change rooms now, which is - good. Keiichi dons his mask, Liger steps into the ring. 

Suzuki screams. Liger feints, for what feels like a long time. He finds himself forced to make the first move, and soon they’re grappling on the ground, as though they are young again, except Suzuki is punching him in the head.

Liger does not like MMA. It’s lawless, cruel. 

They tumble, and Liger can’t get an upper hand, can only resist. When Suzuki mounts him from behind, starts choking him - he taps. 

It’s both reminiscent of a moment, long ago, when Suzuki had him in a headlock while he jerked him off, and nothing like it. Suzuki is hard against his back, Liger is dizzy, the crowd roars, and he taps, because he wants this to be over. It’s too confusing. 

From the mat, catching his breath, he watches Suzuki on his trainer’s shoulder, victorious, vicious. He still doesn’t know if Suzuki remembers him. 

Suzuki thanks him on mic, and Liger suggests a re-match - in a few years. The audience find that very funny. 

They shake, and with a half smile, Suzuki says, “This crowd loves you, Liger-san.”

“Your sport and mine have a lot of cross-over. You would get this reception, back in New Japan.”

Suzuki nods, considering.

*** 

Everyone goes out after, and Liger keeps his mask on because that’s what he does now. Not because he’s worried. 

It’s a fun night, only made tense by Keiichi’s own anxiety, which he keeps a lid on. He’s good at that.

Eventually, Suzuki sits by him, hands him a drink. 

“Do you think I could be a pro-wrestler again?”

Keiichi stares at him. This wasn’t the conversation he expected to have.

“Of course you could. You’re very talented, you have a huge fanbase.”

Suzuki shrugs, tips his head. “Not as big as yours, Liger-san. Though I don’t think I want to wear a mask.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” Keiichi laughs, a little drunk. “Most don’t.”

Suzuki laughs with him, and Keiichi relaxes, feels like maybe it doesn’t matter whether or not he remembers, like maybe they can just be friends and colleagues and the past doesn’t matter.

“When I left New Japan,” Suzuki says, “you were still a handsome babyface. Why did they cover you up?”

Well, shit. 

Keiichi looks at him, but Suzuki just smiles - as if this is still a normal conversation. “I wasn’t sure if you remembered.”

“Really?” Suzuki seems delighted. “Why would I forget?”

Keiichi shakes his head, because he can’t say _I have no idea how your mind works._ Instead, he says, “The company wanted a character. I thought it would be fun. It was. It is.” Suzuki nods. Keiichi, compelled by beer and years of curiosity asks, “Why did you leave?”

Suzuki nods. “People always ask that. It’s not that complicated. I didn’t like being under the company’s thumb. I wanted to forge my own path. I’m not good at playing politics, and I didn’t want to.”

“Who had you under their thumb?” Keiichi frowns. “You’re not - you aren’t the kind of man to be under anyone.”

Suzuki laughs, uproariously, drawing attention of half the bar. Keiichi feels hot, and cold, and shocked, realising what he’s said. He watches Suzuki pound the table, nearly spilling their drinks.

“You’re still insane,” Keiichi mutters, as Suzuki settles, wiping tears of joy from his eyes.

“You should come see where I live,” Suzuki says, without preamble. “It’s much better than the dojo.”

“I should hope so,” Keiichi tells him, trying to buy time to process the invitation. 

Suzuki grins at him, and he realises: of course. Of course Suzuki agreed to fight a masked wrestler. Of course he remembered, of course he knew. He knew here it would lead. 

***

He takes off his mask when he takes off his shoes, just inside Suzuki’s door. It’s a really nice apartment, probably, but he can’t look at it because Suzuki is staring at him, eyes black and unblinking.

“You got old, Yamada-san.”

“Look who’s talking. You used to be pretty.”

“We’re both ugly old men now,” Suzuki says, closing in. “Who would have us?”

“Blind fools,” Keiichi says, “who have been hit in the head.”

Suzuki slams him against the wall, kicks his legs apart. Keiichi shoves him back, and Suzuki slams him again, pins his arms at the elbows. Keiichi’s body floods with adrenaline, with heat. Involuntarily, his hips rock forward, and Suzuki grins. 

“You still want to fight?”

“You invited me over,” Keiichi says, dizzy. “I didn’t think it was for tea.”

Suzuki leans in, kisses him. It’s strangely delicate, warm, maybe a testament to how much older they are. When he stops, Keiichi tries to chase his lips, but is still trapped. Suzuki tilts his head, runs his tongue over his teeth. “Have you ever been taken?”

“What?” Keiichi asks, squinting. 

So Suzuki takes him to bed, presses him down, opens him. It feels like finding new muscles, at nearly forty, like lifting a weight that seemed impossible a year ago. 

When Suzuki buries his cock into Keiichi, with his face pushed against his back, he says something like, “Finally,” and Keiichi can’t speak, has no concept of language or sense, knows nothing but the burning pressure of Suzuki on him, in him. 

He fixes a hand to Keiichi’s throat - not restricting his air but his blood flow, and Keiichi doesn’t tap, doesn’t want this to stop, wants this electric moment, like the instant that a storm breaks, to last forever. 

Instead, he comes, blinded, bloodless, and Suzuki snaps his hips, pounding into him, pouring into him, shouting, again, hands tight. 

After, they lie, panting, still touching, gentle now, and Keiichi doesn’t mean to, but he falls asleep. 

***

He wakes confused, still in the dark, at Suzuki moving in the room. 

“You should clean up,” Suzuki tells him, and Keiichi feels ashamed - not of the sex, but of passing out, of outstaying his welcome. “You may as well sleep here,” he says, back to him, voice giving away nothing.

“Do you do this with all your opponents?” Keiichi asks, unable to move or self-censor. 

Suzuki turns towards him, raises an eyebrow in the gloom. “With a select few. I have very high standards.”

“I see,” Keiichi says. 

“Bathroom’s down the hall,” Suzuki says, and turns away again.

Everything hurts, but he drags himself up.

He washes himself in the bathroom, surprised by his own body for the first time in years. 

He’s not sure if he’s made a mistake. 

He lies down beside Suzuki, listens to his slightly wheezy breathing, and goes back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hTdEb5VG9A


	3. Chapter 3

He hears that Suzuki is coming back to New Japan and laughs to himself. He’s realised, after decades of knowing him, that Suzuki is actually just like most wrestlers - he wants attention and he’s good at getting it.

His character is essentially himself, but slightly more serious, slightly more reckless.

People love him.

They don’t fight each other. 

Suzuki’s a heavyweight, allegedly, he’s in this, that or the other company. Keiichi hadn’t wanted to seek out his MMA fighting, but he does his wrestling. He likes watching Suzuki be the insane, sadistic villain he was in Pancrase in a safer environment. 

They do spar a few times, in the dojo, as a teaching exercise, and each time it ends in Suzuki’s apartment, sometimes with beer, sometimes just them, fighting to completion, on the floor or the bed. 

They’re getting older, and it happens less. 

They take their time, making fun of each other, being casual about their pain and damage, but then in 2015, at the dojo, Keiichi is too hurt by a leg bar to even get up without help. 

“I’ll buy you a drink,” Suzuki says, quietly, so no one hears.

“I don’t think I can,” he admits. 

He hadn’t thought that would end it, but Suzuki doesn’t spar with him again. He fights other people, and if he fucks any of them, it’s not really Keiichi’s business. 

***

They’re friends and colleagues and the past doesn’t matter. His army of bullies are fun to fight, though Keiichi doesn’t feel compelled to take any of them to bed. 

 

Suzuki grins at him when they watch young lions, ignores him in tag matches. 

***

Time flows past him. His legs get worse. His hair is gone. 

People retire. Some pass away.

He announces his retirement with an explanation to the company, to the fans and no one else.

***

Backstage at Madison Square Garden, Suzuki comes over to his corner of the big, crowded change room. 

“You should come at me, when you get in.”

“Should I?” 

Muta, outlining his eyes at a nearby mirror, waves a finger at him. “Don’t eliminate my rival. I have plans.”

Suzuki doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s a near thing. “People will want to see Jushin Liger and Suzuki Minoru,” he counters. 

“They will,” Liger nods. “Just don’t get tipped over before I get there.”

“What, by these children?” He clicks his tongue. “Don’t offend me, asshole.”

“Watch your language, bastard,” Keiichi replies, and Suzuki laughs. 

***

In the ring, Suzuki seems like the only familiar thing. His nasty legs, his scowling face. He smells the same as he always has. He feels the same under Keiichi.

***

In a New York hotel room, Suzuki sucks his cock. It’s in bed, not the shower, because neither of them want to kneel on tiles anymore, and it takes longer than it did the first time. 

Keiichi keeps calling him bastard, and Suzuki laughs, because he is one.

Neither of them talk about the fact that this is the first time in years they've been together. What is there to say? 

Later, after they’ve both come and napped and cleaned up, Suzuki starts getting dressed. Keiichi watches him, half awake, thoroughly satisfied.

“We should fight before you retire. One on one. Like Pancrase.”

“Why?” Keiichi asks. He’s never asked before. 

“Because I want to. You want to. We’re good at it.”

“Is that all?”

Suzuki frowns at him. “What else do you think there is?”

He can’t come up with a response, and stays awake a while after Suzuki’s left, unable to formulate an answer.

***

Suzuki really starts pushing their one on one. Liger never agreed to it, but he also didn’t disagree.

The stakes are - strange. He can’t determine what Suzuki wants out of this, apart from what he always wants - attention, and a body to pin down.

What surprises Keiichi is how legitimately pissed off he is when Suzuki brings gloves to the ring, asks how much longer he’ll have to wait. 

As if Suzuki ever followed the rules of anything.

As if Keiichi has been the one keeping Suzuki waiting.

Things get - chaotic. Which is what Suzuki loves. That’s where he lives. He stares at Keiichi, blatant, disrespectful, and Liger boils.

Keiichi is frustrated by how easily he was baited. How Suzuki has gotten what he wants, again. 

So he takes the mic and makes a demand. 

And Suzuki is waiting for him, after his shower, and he makes a demand.

***

He’s moved to another, even nicer apartment. He’s very fashionable.

Keiichi comes without a mask.

Suzuki is drinking whiskey when he answers the door, and that means he only winds one hand into Keiichi’s shirt collar, shoves him back against the closed door with only one arm. 

Keiichi’s blood is still up, and he takes a hold of Suzuki’s wrist, twists it away, pushes past him further into the apartment.

“Oi, don’t make me spill my drink,” Suzuki calls after him.

“Don’t answer the door drinking, you drunkard.”

Suzuki sets the glass down, dramatically, and strolls in close, puts his hands on either side of Keiichi’s throat. He’s so hot.

“What do you want?” Keiichi asks. 

“To finish the fight,” Suzuki says, smiling.

“That’s not what this is.” Keiichi doesn’t know why he’s starting this argument but he wants to. “We fight in the ring. This is different.” 

“Feels the same, though.” Suzuki tightens his hands a little, raises his chin.

Keiichi punches him in the stomach.

Suzuki, unprepared for it, staggers back. His eyes are wide, mad.

Keiichi tackles him.

He climbs on top of him, slaps him in the head.

“Not the same thing? Asshole?” Suzuki grabs at his wrists, and they glare at each other.

“If you wanted to fight, there are plenty of people to fight you.”

Suzuki twists under him, but Keiichi gets a hand free and slaps him in the head again. Suzuki snatches at him but he pulls back

“What do you want with me?”

“Nothing now, you fucking cat.”

“Don’t lie,” Keiichi tells him, like he’s admonishing a child. Suzuki looks sullen enough to be a child, too.

He blows air out through his teeth. “To have sex, moron.”

Keiichi nods. “Next time, just ask. You don’t have to pick a fight every time.”

“Get the fuck off me.”

Keiichi does, sits next to him, on the carpet. 

“What’s your problem, anyway?” Suzuki sits up, slaps him in the chest. It’s half hearted.

“You pissed me off. You don’t have to piss me off to get me into bed.”

“It’s worked, though.” Suzuki smirks.

“This is the floor,” Keiichi says, flatly.

“That hasn’t stopped us before.”

“Thirty years ago, bastard. We’re old now.” He gets to his feet, reaches down to help Suzuki up. 

He ignores the hand, stands on his own, sneers, “So nostalgic, Yamada.” 

“Says the man who kept gloves for seventeen years.”

Suzuki looks angry for a second, and Keiichi kisses him. He’s compelling to look at, but also to touch.

Suzuki growls into his mouth, which is very funny. Keiichi takes Suzuki’s hands in his, guides then to his throat. 

They make their way, distractedly, to bed, and Keiichi watches Suzuki strip down. He reaches out, and Suzuki comes to him, lies with his back flush to Keiichi’s belly, lets him fold a leg over his. 

He finds Suzuki’s cock, strokes it slowly, biting at the back of his neck. He writhes, and Keiichi holds him tighter. 

When they’re both hard, Keiichi rolls him over, presses their mouths together, holds their erections together. 

He doesn’t feel younger, but he does feel better.

Later, Suzuki drags one of his arms over him, holds it there, sighs in the dark. 

“I wanted to fuck you,” he says, “but now I’m tired.”

“Another time,” Keiichi tells him.

“After our fight.”

“Maybe,” Keiichi yawns. “Or some other day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me three days ago: ok i’ll just write like 1000 words of porn, no need to get bogged down in research or feelings  
> me now: Fuck

**Author's Note:**

> don't look at me


End file.
